Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston on Wednesday rejected an effort to put an abortion rights amendment proposal on the November ballot, citing incomplete paperwork.
Thurston, a Republican, told the group that collected signatures for the petition that it did not submit statements that showed it informed paid canvassers about the rules for gathering signatures and that it did not identify those paid canvassers by name.
The group, Arkansans for Limited Government, announced on Friday that it had collected more than 101,000 signatures from registered voters to put the proposal on the ballot. The amendment to the state constitution would protect abortion access up to 18 weeks after fertilization and would extend that protection in cases of rape, incest and instances of a fatal fetal anomaly.
But Thurston told the group that because of those paperwork omissions, some of the signatures submitted are ineligible, leaving the petition 3,322 signatures short of the required 90,704.
Arkansans for Limited Government assailed the secretary of state in a statement late Wednesday. The group said it had worked with his office “during every step of the process” to make sure its organizers were adhering to the rules:
At multiple junctures — including on July 5 inside of the Capitol Building — we discussed signature submission requirements with the Secretary of State’s staff. In fact, the Secretary of State’s office supplied us with the affidavit paperwork, which we used. Until today, we had no reason not to trust that the paperwork they supplied us was correct and complete.
“Asserting now that we didn’t provide required documentation regarding paid canvassers is absurd and demonstrably, undeniably incorrect,” the group said.
Republican lawmakers in Arkansas cheered the secretary’s rejection of the proposal. In a post on X, Gov. Sarah Sanders mocked abortion rights advocates, writing, “Today the far left pro-abortion crowd in Arkansas showed they are both immoral and incompetent.”
Securing abortion rights in the state constitution through a ballot measure has been a winning approach in Michigan, California and Ohio. Voters in several other states are also poised to vote on an amendment proposal in November. But replicating that success in Arkansas — a deep-red state with a near-total abortion ban, where zero abortions were reportedly performed last year — would be an uphill climb.
Arkansans for Limited Government said it will keep pushing for the proposal. “We will fight this ridiculous disqualification attempt with everything we have,” the group said. “We will not back down.”